Report: Ex-coach helped players cheat on SAT

Former Piper High School football coach David Coleman had his educator’s license suspended for giving members of the football team answers to SAT questions, according to a newly released order issued by Florida’s Education Practices Commission.

Coleman did not contest the allegations, according to the state’s paperwork from June. But in an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday, he said the cheating didn’t happen.

He suggested that a member of the football team accused him of helping students get into college because he felt left out. “He wasn’t a collegebound kid,” Coleman said. “He felt I was helping other kids in that department, and that wasn’t the case.”

Coleman signed a settlement agreement confirming a two-year suspension of his license, which began with the release of the final order last month. He elected not to contest the charges, he said, not because he was guilty, but because he didn’t care enough about keeping his position to pay for a lawyer.

Coleman left his position as head coach for the Piper Bengals in January 2019 with no explanation. At the time, he simply tweeted, “Sometimes things happen in life that are out of our control and we have to make moves that are in our best interests. That’s what I’ve decided to do.”

He said that he had decided to leave prior to the allegations.

The Education Commission filed an administrative complaint against Coleman in April 2020 that stated that he had given test answers to players on his team during the 2018-19 school year. In March 2022, Coleman signed a settlement agreeing to the suspension and a $1,500 fine.

Additional details weren’t available Thursday about the cheating allegations, including what penalty, if any, the football players received years ago.

This marks the second sanction against Coleman’s license. He was previously disciplined by the Education Commission for punching a 15-year-old student in the arm when he was an assistant football coach at J.P. Taravella High School in 2014.

Tavarella dismissed Coleman as a coach, and the district suspended him from teaching three days. Soon after, he began coaching at Piper while the court case was pending. Coleman later pleaded no contest to those charges.

“I just wanted to get it over with,” Coleman told the Sun Sentinel at the time. “I just want to move on and continue coaching football and helping kids.”

Now, Coleman says he has no intentions to return to teaching or coaching.

“I gave that up, I walked away,” he said. “I make more money doing what I’m doing.”